Manager Memo podcast · Len Samborowski, MBA Associate Professor, Nichols College

Step into the Spotlight: eReleases Press Release Service

·34 min·2 clips

One Wall Street Journal article can bring three or four calls, or $70,000 to $80,000 in sales in a day.

Mickey Kennedy comes on as the CEO of eReleases and a PR expert. He opens with a simple claim: small businesses can punch above their weight if they use press releases well. That sets up a conversation that stays close to practical business value. Kennedy traces his background through a Master's of Fine Arts in Creative Writing with an emphasis in poetry and an early plan to teach. Teaching did not stick. He moved on to waiting tables, then into a telecom research startup as employee number three. The startup role put him in a position to write press releases. That work became the bridge into PR. The episode treats that pivot as part luck, part usefulness. It is a story about finding the job that fits a skill before the title exists. Kennedy explains that earned media can do more than create visibility. It can produce phone calls, leads, and direct sales. Sometimes the effect is modest. Sometimes it is dramatic. He describes cases where coverage can lead to three or four phone calls and cases where it can trigger a deluge of $70,000 to $80,000 in sales in a single day. The exact result depends on the product and the audience. He points to consumer products as especially strong candidates when they get picked up by national outlets. He also talks through crowdfunding campaigns and products that have appeared on Shark Tank. Those examples keep the idea grounded in real market behavior. For B2B offers, he says the value often shows up as leads rather than instant purchases. That means the business has to be ready when the traffic arrives. A press release alone is not enough. The homepage, the offer, and the lead capture flow all matter. He also makes the case that coverage can support retention, not just acquisition. When customers see a business in the news, it can reinforce trust and make them less likely to shop around. The same link can also help when shown to prospects who need a reason to believe. The conversation lands on a simple point: being small is not a weakness in PR. In Kennedy's view, it can make a business more interesting to journalists. The episode closes on that note of permission and possibility.

As heard by us

Press releases are framed here as leverage, not hype.

The piece treats press releases as working business tools rather than a relic of old marketing. Mickey Kennedy lays out how small companies can use earned media to build credibility, pull in leads, and sometimes land a meaningful sales spike without paying big-agency rates.

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Why you'd press play

Want a plainspoken case for how press releases can still drive sales?

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